


Mirrorverse odds and ends

by Nele



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-03-18
Updated: 2014-12-08
Packaged: 2017-12-05 16:50:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 14,396
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/725601
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nele/pseuds/Nele
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Little bits of fic that didn't fit in any of the larger stories in the Jeeko verse centered on <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/series/26344">People in the Mirror</a>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Just rewards

**Author's Note:**

> For Attackfish, who wanted an Iroh and Zhao reunion after [A Tightly Woven Net](http://archiveofourown.org/works/327082). I apologize for the fact that there isn't much of a reunion at all, but this is all I can imagine happening at that point.

"Zuko."

Iroh could see his fingers trembling against the side of his nephew's head. The short stubbles of hair felt strange, rough and unfamiliar.

"Zuko," he said again. He'd thought he'd never speak that name again to a living person. It hadn't passed his lips once in the past weeks. "Go freshen up, my nephew. Master Cook has made all your favorite dishes. We'll have a small private feast today, and a larger celebration tomorrow."

Zuko frowned. His thickly bandaged hands left Iroh's shoulders, and he crossed his arms over his chest.

"Uncle, I don't have time for parties. We need to negotiate with Zhao how he's going to help me get the Avatar."

Iroh steeled himself against the familiar rush of disappointment that always followed any evidence of Zuko's continued focus on the Avatar. It didn't come. 

But he was almost knocked over by a wave of blind anger that made his chi roil all the way from his stomach to the tips of his toes and fingers. Zhao had _dared_. He'd _dared_ not just to imprison Zuko, but to play tricks on him, to convince him that he might actually _help_...

Zuko sensed the shift in Iroh's fire; his one good eye widened, turning his beloved, lopsided face into an almost comical mask of half surprise and half anger. The burned eye stayed pinched and narrow, a screaming reminder of what had happened the last time Iroh had stood by as another ruthless man with no love or compassion tore into his nephew's flesh with fire, and into his mind with lies and false promises.

Enough.

Iroh forced himself to smile. He was a good actor, always had been. "It's nothing, nephew. Just the mere thought that I may not get to taste Master Cook's excellent komodo sausages tomorrow after all!" He nudged Zuko's shoulder. "We'll discuss our plans over dinner. You absolutely must allow you old uncle to feed you up a bit. Go on ahead, I'll join you in a moment."

An explosive sigh.

"Uncle..."

Iroh was so focused on every line of Zuko's face that he barely registered the man approaching them from the side. He didn't need to look to recognize the steady, restrained thrumming of Lieutenant Jee's fire, though.

Iroh would have to thank Jee later for keeping faith when his own had been wavering. He hadn't managed to let himself believe it when a letter from Zuko had come two days ago, saying that he was fine, that he'd struck a deal with Zhao and wanted the ships to meet. It had taken Jee hours to convince Iroh that they had to take the chance. That as much as the letter was a bolt out of the blue, it was definitely in Zuko's hand and it sounded exactly like him. That if Zhao wanted to lure them into a trap, he'd cook up something a damn sight more believable than that he'd suddenly decided to set his captive free.

"Sir," the Lieutenant said. "Welcome back aboard, sir. We've kept reports of all sightings of the Avatar during your absence. Would you like to review them now?"

Good man.

All of Zuko's attention shifted to Jee in the blink of an eye. His face lit up with something that looked almost close to happiness.

"Yes. Show me."

Jee glanced back at Iroh as he followed Zuko into the superstructure of the ship. Iroh nodded at him.

He only needed his nephew to be out of the way for a moment. Zuko would be furious, no doubt, but Iroh was done with giving him his way in everything just because he felt too guilty to deny the boy anything he desired. There would be other consequences as well, heavy consequences, but...

Enough.

Iroh turned around and looked up at the deck of the larger ship lying alongside them. Zhao was still there; he hadn't moved from the railing since the sloop containing Zuko and a few soldiers had been lowered into the water and set out for the Yuan. Iroh's old eyes could barely make out the other man's features at this distance, but after weeks of having his mind filled with nothing but thoughts of the horrors his nephew might be suffering on the Commander's ship, Iroh would be able to pick Zhao out of a crowd of thousands. Blindfolded, too.

He slid back one foot and raised his right hand. The fleshy parts of his palm and fingers were still tingling from the rough stubble on Zuko's head. 

Iroh breathed in two great lungfuls of sea air and began to draw his arm back, and the prickling sparked into lightning on his skin.


	2. That damned song

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jee's musical repertoire is not appropriate.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For Amanda, who wanted to see how Jee would fare as a babysitter for the royal offspring. Contains a dumb joke that will make no sense at all if you don't remember the first chapter of _People in the Mirror_.

Life as captain of the royal guard was good, now that Jee had gotten used to it a bit. He had very nice rooms, for instance, and a very nice bed. The bed looked even nicer than usual now that the Fire Lord was lying sprawled out on it. Unfortunately, Zuko was fully dressed, and he'd passed out for no reason except that he'd been exhausted and high-strung for days and had somehow managed to complain himself to sleep. 

Normally, Jee would have woken him up for some fun. He couldn't this time because the Crown Princess of the Fire Nation was in the room. On Jee's lap.

She strained against Jee's arms, twisting to look over her shoulder at her sleeping father.

"Ba!" 

It was her first and hitherto only word, but from the way Zuko usually reacted to it, you'd think she was reciting the full high prayer to Agni.

"Shhh," Jee said. He had a good grip on the baby's back already, but adjusted it just in case. The princess was getting disturbingly good at sudden and unexpected escape attempts. Not that Jee held her that often, but he'd seen her actually launch herself out of Zuko's arms by bracing her feet against his chest and pushing.

She hadn't fallen on her head that time, thank the spirits, but the screaming had still been unholy. The princess had a truly impressive set of lungs, and she used them at every hint of an opportunity. At least no one would ever be able to deny her paternity.

The row that Zuko had had with his dearly beloved following his failure to keep hold of a single baby had been only the start of a few very unpleasant days, though. The Fire Lady had ended up leaving the palace for a "vacation" on Kyoshi Island, again. It happened with such regularity that nobody in the palace but Zuko really worried whenever the royal couple had yet another spat that drove the Lady Mai out of the palace. Jee certainly didn't worry about it, because Zuko had developed the extremely charming habit of seeking comfort in Jee's bed whenever his wife chose to take her royal presence elsewhere.

Today, though, Zuko had shown up with the princess in his arms. Jee liked the child, in an abstract sort of way, but it was never a good sign when she appeared in the company of one of Zuko's famous bad moods. It meant that Zuko was trying his damnest to keep from screaming. The former brat prince had developed a variety of ways to keep his temper under control, and one of his most effective tricks for staying calm was carrying his daughter around. He couldn't get angry around her. She fussed and cried when he got upset, and while her wailing was painful only to the eardrums for Jee, it seemed to feel like a knife straight through the heart for Zuko.

She twisted around again, planting her tiny feet almost straight on Jee's groin so she could lean back over his arm and stare at the bed.

Ow.

"Ba!"

"Please be quiet," Jee said, surpressing the urge to follow it up with "Sir".

"Baaa," she said mournfully.

"Your father needs to sleep. Be quiet." He knew she couldn't understand him, but he couldn't bring himself to talk to her in the ridiculous baby voices that her nurses produced. He had no idea where to even start, and he'd never hear the end of it if Zuko woke up and caught Jee telling a baby what a cute widdle button she was.

She was looking up at him now. The corners of her mouth were starting to pull down.

Oh, no. "Your Highness," Jee told her, feeling like the world's biggest idiot. "For the love of all fire spirits, I beg you, don't scream."

Her mouth was doing some horrible wobbly thing. Jee watched it with the sort of alarm that he usually reserved for incoming fireballs. If he made her cry, Zuko would tear him limb from limb before he even woke up properly and realized who he was killing. "Jumpy" didn't begin to describe him. It was understandable, with the assassination attempts and all, but Zuko had gotten downright dangerous to wake up next to.

"I'll give you a sweet," he tried.

She _scowled_. Jee had no idea how someone who barely even had eyebrows could scowl, but she did.

"Ba," she said, with loud and clipped finality. It sounded exactly like _This is your last chance_.

Jee was utterly, desperately out of ideas. Perhaps he could sing to her? Her nurses did that sometimes.

 _Girls from Ba Sing Se_ was nice. Yes, that was it.

Jee began to hum. He was fairly sure he should be bouncing her too, but he'd never gotten the bouncing thing down.

"It's a long, long way to Ba Sing Se..."

Miraculously, the ominous curl of the princess' lips faded. She stared up at Jee with rapt attention.

"...but the girls in the city, they look so pretty..."

She giggled.

It was surprisingly pleasant to see her look _happy_ , Jee realized. He felt ridiculously proud. The princess was damned hard to entertain. For someone so young, she seemed to have extremely particular tastes, and he usually got the feeling that she didn't really like him very much.

Look at her now. Jee could feel a rather daft smile forming on his lips, all by itself.

There was movement on the bed. Jee glanced over, careful to keep singing and not give the baby any hint that things were happening behind her back.

Zuko was lying more or less in the same position he'd fallen asleep in, but he'd turned his head away from the wall. His good eye was open. He wasn't quite smiling, but it looked very close.

Jee tried hard to keep his own daft smile from descending into moronic. And to keep singing, instead of saying something like _You're beautiful_. He absently patted the princess on the back.

"...so sweet that you really got to meet... The balls of Captain Zhao."

Zuko's good eye snapped open wide and furious, an instant before Jee realized what had just come out of his mouth.

The princess giggled. It didn't sound nearly as nice as earlier. It sounded _gleeful_.

"Ball!"

Jee closed his eyes.


	3. Home

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For Samalane. Just a snippet of a longer fic that may or may not get written one day. The situation: Jee is captain of the royal guard and still has a thing for Zuko, but he's kept a lid on it all this time because Zuko now has another lover. After Mai leaves Zuko during _The Promise_ , though, a furious and betrayed-feeling Zuko visits Jee's room and - instead of simply complaining and drinking all of Jee's alcohol, like usual - suggests a tumble. Jee accepts, because no matter how much he respects Mai, it really rankles that she basically replaced him with a bunch of random Kyoshi Warriors a few weeks earlier.
> 
> It's all very angry and angsty in my head, and neither of them are showing their best sides here. But they're not exactly known for their ability to resist temptation.

Jee stepped out into the corridor to face the pair of interchangeable Kyoshi Warriors on duty. The colors made their faces fiercely, aggressively unreadable, but Jee matched their painted glares. He could say whatever he wanted to these people, and Zuko could do anything he wanted, and they didn't have to care about what a couple of women might think of them.

"The Fire Lord will be staying in here for the night. Dismissed," Jee said. They probably wouldn't go far; it wasn't like they had to take his orders. But they might back off at least a bit.

Not that the thought of them hearing Zuko moan Jee's name was entirely unpleasant.

Jee didn't wait to see their reactions, but turned back into his room and shut the door behind him very firmly. Zuko had moved from the chair to the side of Jee's bed. He'd taken off his shoulder guards; the red and black wings were standing on the dresser. He was kneading his own shoulder with a look of half pain and half relief, and Jee wondered exactly how heavy those metal plates were. A regular uniform's shoulder guard was nothing to sneer at, but three of them...

There would be time enough later to ruminate on the sense or nonsense of the Fire Lord's sartorial duties. He sat down next to Zuko.

"Sir, are you sure?"

Zuko let go of his own neck and looked straight at Jee. He still looked angry, but in a strangely reluctant way, as if he desperately wished he wasn't.

"Yes. Don't ask again."

Right. Jee almost started to think about this again, how it would complicate everything, how Zuko's currently former girlfriend might or might not decide to put a knife in his face when she inevitably returned. But Jee knew very well how to nip his own thoughts in the bud when they were threatening to spoil his fun, and he did. 

He doused the lamps on the walls with a breath, then leaned in and pressed his lips to Zuko's.

He'd thought it would be hard, after so much time, and with so much between them now. Whenever he'd allowed himself to picture this moment, he'd imagined hesitation on both their parts. He'd imagined that Fire Lord Zuko would taste and feel as different as he looked from the brat prince who had once shared Jee's bunk on a cold rust bucket of a ship.

But it was as easy as breathing. Zuko's mouth opened under his instantly, and he inhaled deeply to swallow Jee's fire, just like he used to. Greedy brat, always taking and always forgetting to give back. Zuko grabbed at Jee's collar and tugged, and Jee responded to the familiar unspoken order like he'd been doing nothing else for the past two years, leaning in to cover Zuko and push him down into the mattress. Zuko twisted his whole body with the movement. His mouth never left Jee's, and before Jee felt rather than saw Zuko's head hit the pillow - he hadn't even realized he'd closed his eyes - a strong leg had come up to wrap around his waist. 

Jee let himself sink down between Zuko's thighs. Open and warm and welcoming, as if he'd never left at all.

It was so easy.


	4. Safe and sound

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For dracomaleficium, who wanted to see Zuko and Jee reunite after the events of [A Tightly Woven Net](http://archiveofourown.org/works/327082). Contains non-graphic thoughts about the very dubcon thing that happened in that story. This is my first real attempt at Zuko's POV, and he came out a mess, which may or may not be appropriate. Unsurprisingly, the angst here is somewhat excessive. I have no idea if it works, concrit welcome! Takes place after [this ficlet](http://archiveofourown.org/works/725601/chapters/1346452).

Zuko hisses as strips of white cotton tighten around his burned fingers, slippery with pungent salve. The smell still makes him want to gag after over two years. He swallows it down.

The burns on his hands hurt fiercely, a constant raw throbbing that spikes every time he moves his fingers. The pain is a good sign, he knows that. It meant that the burns aren't deep. The one on his face barely hurt at all in the beginning, until it started healing. The sensation had been all-consuming after that. It hadn't been the first time he got a bad burn, but on the face was so much worse than on the arm or leg. For weeks, even trying to _think_ had hurt. He still can't recall three quarters of what he said and did during that first month on the ship. 

Not much good, judging by the way everyone acted once his face stopped feeling like it was still on fire long enough for him to realize what was going on around him. The first people whose names he asked had acted like he'd asked at least three times already, and they thought he was being either stupid or deliberately rude. He hadn't been able to admit that he didn't remember meeting them before.

The remembered shame of the mishap is no less strong even after more than two years. It was only one out of many times when he did stupid things in front of other people, but these memories don't fade. They assault him at every inopportune moment, when he's trying to meditate, or just eating, or just watching the sparrowgulls glide on the wind over the waves.

Zuko doesn't realize he's been squeezing his eyes shut until something hard presses against his lips, and his nose is suddenly full of the smell of paint stripper instead of the horrible burn ointment.

"Finished, sir. Drink some more. It'll help with the pain," Jee's voice rumbles.

The man's face is blurry when Zuko opens his eyes, and he has to blink several times to make out the familiar severe frown and grey whiskers. The film of wetness over his sight doesn't quite leave even then.

Zuko swallows the alcohol and lets it burn the inside of his mouth and throat, a good burn, sharp and familiar. The sting in his eyes gets worse, though.

Damn it, he's not going to cry over a little bit of pain. He's had so much worse. He didn't cry once while he was on Zhao's ship, not when the letter from Father... Not even after the lightning storm, when he had to...

His fingers try to curl into fists by themselves, and the stabbing pain makes him gasp before he catches himself. 

He won't remember this. He will put it behind him. He _will_.

The rim of the earthen cup nudges his lips once more just when Zuko realizes that he's closed his eyes again.

"Have another sip, sir," Jee says. 

He sounds concerned now. Zuko knows he should take offense, push back. This is the worst possible time for him to admit to any sort of weakness. Jee is still calling him by his title only out of habit. He's nothing now, not even a citizen of the Fire Nation like Jee.

He can't bring himself to remind the man of that, even though he knows he should. What would he ask to be called instead of "sir"? Zuko? It's an ancient Fire name, a noble name for a descendant of the sun. A gift that he no longer has the right to keep. 

_I don't want to have no name_ , Zuko thinks as he opens his mouth to let Jee tip in another small cupful of paint stripper. He stares at the fresh bandages. They cover his hands completely, unlike the bandages Zhao's physician had put on him, and they're so stiff that he can barely even try to bend his fingers.

"How am I supposed to eat like this? Or write?" Or do anything.

Defend himself if need be. He's on his own ship now, it should be safe, but Zuko hasn't felt safe in weeks and it's hard to shake off the feeling that he should be holding his knife, that he shouldn't be drinking anything that might impair his alertness and reaction speed, that...

Zuko stares down at the broad hand still cradling his own. He's not afraid of Jee. The man has never tried to harm him. But he's _nothing_ now, and the thought of what Jee would be allowed to do to him now makes his blood run cold. 

It's not that he thinks Jee actually _would_... It's just the idea, the possibility, the notion and the knowledge of exactly how dependent he is on Jee's goodwill now. Zuko knows far too well what any Fire Nation citizen may do to a man with no nation, no Fire Lord, no spirits to call upon, no father whose name he can invoke. Zhao described it all in graphic detail that Zuko can't unhear, and no matter how much he knows that this is Jee...

He can't help but think that the man might want revenge for over two years of... All those things Zuko had done to make his life hard. If it were Zuko, he'd want revenge. He'd be angry. He'd take the opportunity to strike back. He'd wanted to kill Zhao, he'd been so close to doing it.

Jee shrugs. If Zuko's fingers have begun to tremble in his, he hasn't noticed. Zuko takes a few deep breaths to still the movement. 

He's not afraid and he won't show fear that isn't there. 

Jee would not harm him. He knows this. He _knows_.

"Your esteemed uncle or I will help you with dressing and washing and everything, sir. You need to let those burns rest for a few days at least if you want them to heal properly."

Jee is packing away leftover bandages into the medic's case. They don't have a proper doctor on board, just a couple of people who have some notions of battlefield medicine. Jee knows a thing or two about taking care of burns. Zuko has a vague memory of his uncle insisting that he let the Lieutenant take care of the burn on his face, back in the beginning, but he'd been clear enough of mind to refuse entry into his cabin to anyone but his uncle. Bad enough that they were all three times his age and he had no idea what he was doing. He'd have been damned if he let them see him snivel like a baby.

Perhaps it wouldn't have scarred so badly if he'd let someone more qualified than Uncle Iroh look after it.

"There will be some scarring, sir," Jee goes on as he closes the medic's case and gives the bandages on Zuko's fingers one last once-over. He does seem to know what he's doing. "Perhaps a little tightness, but you should keep full use of your hands."

"Good," Zuko whispers.

Jee's fingers feel warm around his own. Jee is always warm. It had been so cold in that cell, nearly on the water line, so far away from the ship's boilers or from the firebenders' quarters.

The grip on his hands changes, heats up, and Zuko barely resists the sudden urge to draw away. He doesn't even know where it's coming from.

He's not afraid because there is nothing to fear here.

He raises his head. Jee is looking him in the eyes with strange intent. The press of his fingers on Zuko's is getting unconfortable, and not because it hurts. It... itches.

He's not afraid.

"Sir, who did this?"

Zuko had burned his own hands trying to escape and being a giant idiot, but that's stupid and he doesn't want Jee to think he's stupid. More than the man does already, anyway. Blaming it on Zhao would be pointless now. Zhao is dead.

He doesn't answer the question. The only thing he'd like to say is _I'm tired and I want to go to sleep_ , but if he says that, he has to follow it up with either _Leave my cabin_ or _Stay with me_. And he doesn't know which he'd prefer.

This is stupid. He's glad that Jee seems happy to have him back, that he's not as angry with Zuko as he was around the time Zuko went and got himself captured. He helped Uncle chase after Zhao's ship. He's bandaging Zuko's hands and being kind to him, like he doesn't even remember why they were having such horrible arguments three times a day about the way Zuko was handling the Avatar search.

Zuko should be grateful for this. 

"Sir," Jee whispers, suddenly soft and close. "You were missed, sir."

He leans in slowly, and Zuko knows it's to give him time to pull away, because it's been so long, because...

He's not sure if he wants to.

But he _is_ sure that he's safe here, somewhere deep down, so he relaxes into it as Jee's chapped lips rasp over his own. Oh. _Oh_ , yes, he's missed this. It's such a simple thing, to feel so good. He never would have thought this could feel so good, to simply press his mouth against someone else's and swallow the sparks on their lips. He never would have thought that there would be so much taste to another bender's fire. Whenever he tried to swallow his own flames before, it had been much like just breathing in hot air.

Zuko opens his mouth and nudges, and Jee sighs against him, pushing back, tracing Zuko's upper lip with his tongue. It feels so good. Jee tastes good, all of him, and he feels heavy and solid, softness over hard heat all over. Zuko had dreamed of this back on Zhao's ship, held on to the memory of the feel and the taste of Jee on his tongue when...

Zuko's mouth stills.

Jee wouldn't be kissing that if he knew where it had been.

A shudder runs up Zuko's spine, and he tries to stop it but he can't, and it wrenches his head backwards entirely outside of his own volition even as his mind screams _don't move don't give anything away don't_ , and he makes a horrible, horrible noise as he does it, something that he doesn't recognize at all and that gurgles up through his throat like it's bile in the shape of a sound.

Silence.

It stretches on for so long that Zuko forces his eyes to open again because the tension is too much. Jee is staring at him, but his eyes are hooded and his face is carefully, carefully blank. Zuko hates it when he does that.

"Sir. Is there anything you want to talk about?"

Jee's mask isn't perfect. There's a crack somewhere, an intensity in his eyes that he's not managing to hide, a sharpness that goes straight through Zuko's head and out the other side. 

He knows. Suspects, at least. This isn't a random question. Jee wasn't born yesterday, and he knows what Zhao is like, and he knows how Zhao was looking at Zuko before.

Jee knows _exactly_ what he's asking about right now.

The certainty makes Zuko's heart skip a beat. He doesn't want to tell. He doesn't want anyone to know, ever. The many reasons why are all tangled up in his head like a nest of bat-snakes. All he knows is that he _doesn't want to tell_ and he doesn't want Jee to know.

Jee has no right to ask this, Zuko tells himself. He'd only done what was necessary. Accepted one disgrace to avoid a greater one. He'd taken matters into his own hands because being forced into it would have been worse. He'd been of sound mind, even with the lightning heating his blood, and he'd been far from defenseless. He'd been locked in a room but not shackled. His firebending had been perfectly fine. He probably could have fought Zhao off if the man had pushed it, actually.

He'd made a _choice_ to do what he did, no more, no less. 

Perhaps it was a shameful choice, but Jee still doesn't have the right to judge him for it. The man has no claim over him. Even if it was him who taught Zuko how to kiss and how to fuck and how to do what he did on Zhao's ship, even if he was first, that doesn't mean he has any right to get upset if Zuko touches someone else. He doesn't have any right to look as angry as he does right now. There was no betrayal in what Zuko did. He does _not_ have to apologize, and he'd rather immolate himself from the inside right here and now than beg for Jee's forgiveness, not for this, never for this. He may have no honor left, but he still has pride, and Jee has no claim over him.

Except that he _does_ have a claim now, if he wants it - only technically, Uncle would never allow it, but Zuko has no country now and _anyone_ who's strong enough to overpower him is allowed to claim him for any purpose they see fit.

Jee could overpower him. He knows all of Zuko's tender spots like Zhao never did, he _knows_ where to strike and... Jee has no right to be angry and Zuko will _not_ beg no matter what it ends up costing him. He has to believe that Jee won't harm him. Jee wouldn't.

Zuko is not afraid of this man and he won't show fear that isn't there.

But it's hard to stay steadfast and motionless when fury is spreading from Jee's eyes to the rest of his face, drawing the corners of his mouth and his eyebrows down. His hands are trembling at least as badly as Zuko's.

"Sir, I will drag him out of the spirit world and find a way to curse him to the ends of the world, I will murder him eighty times over, I will..."

Zuko shakes his head, once, hard. It's not a voluntary reaction. He doesn't even know what he's trying to say no to.

Or maybe he's just saying _Stop_.

"Stay with me," he blurts. 

He doesn't want to hear another word about this. Not another thought. Not another whisper. 

He squeezes his eyes shut against the look on Jee's face and wraps his arms around the man's neck as he leans in. It's dishonorable of him to let Jee think that it was all Zhao's fault, Zuko knows that, but he could never bring himself to say a word about this out loud. Not now. Maybe one day he'll have the strength to be honest, but now he needs to spend the few shreds he has left on not being afraid of what the world is to him now, and he can't be afraid of Jee - not be afraid of Jee - on top of everything else that he will _not_ be afraid of. That would kill him. He can't walk the corridors of his ship - what used to be his ship - in fear of the man who commands it. He can't lie in his bunk afraid of a midnight knock at his door. 

It's a moment before Jee's arms come up around him, slowly, stiffly. For a horribly long two heartbeats, Zuko finds himself rifling through all the tricks he knows - that Jee has shown him - about how to kiss, how to touch, how to seduce a man away from his thoughts. It's all very fresh in his mind. He did an excellent job of it with Zhao only days ago. Not that Jee ever told him to do _that_ with the skills he'd taught, of course, but Zuko has always been good at finding dishonorable purposes for good, beautiful, honorable things. Very appropriate how that is one of his few real talents.

But then before he has to do anything else, Jee's lips begin to move under his, and things almost feel normal. There's a tightness, but nothing worse than the way Zuko's thickly bandaged hands are awkward and stiff around Jee's neck. Nothing that won't heal with time. Probably.

It will get better. They will lie together, tonight, now, and wake up together, and things will be like before and Zuko will be able to breathe a little easier.

He's not afraid because there is nothing to fear here.


	5. First notes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zuko learns to play the pipa.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Very quick bit of fluffy sap for the Princebender folks. Very fluffy sap.

"When can I play?"

"As soon as you can hold her right," Jee said for the fifth time in the space of ten minutes. It was a testament to how much he'd grown to genuinely like this little hooligan that he was managing to stay patient with so little effort.

Maybe he liked Zuko a little more than usual today. The brat had asked and demanded to be taught many things over the past months, but most of them had been related to firebending or punching people in their soft places. Or sex. 

This was different. 

_Show me how to play that pipa_ , he'd said.

Somehow, it felt like the most intimate request that Zuko had ever made of Jee, and that included all the requests that had involved behavior that rarely took place outside brothels.

"A little higher. Yes, there," Jee said as he nudged Zuko's hand up the neck of the instrument.

Zuko's fingers flexed around the wood. His eyes were fixed intently on his fingertips, trembling as they hovered over the strings without actually touching. His arms were far too tense. It was like he expected the pipa to jump up and try to escape.

"You need to cradle her," Jee said as he took hold of Zuko's elbows and gently pushed them down. "Imagine that you're holding a lover, with one hand on her neck and the other on her hip."

"Oh," Zuko said after a moment of silence. His grip on the pipa relaxed until it was surprisingly close to perfect. "Like you hold me."

Did he hold Zuko like that? Perhaps.

"Yes, sir."

Something that might have been a smile ghosted over Zuko's face. His ever-present frown eased a little.

He really wasn't so bad-looking when he wasn't deliberately trying to make the expression on the good side of his face uglier than the scar.

"What do you want to be able to play, sir?"

Zuko shrugged, carefully, as if he didn't want to jostle the pipa.

"I don't know. Something." He shifted on the bed. "One of those songs you sometimes get up to practice when I'm falling asleep. They're nice."

 _I wasn't practicing, I was singing them for you,_ Jee almost said. He might have said it if his heart hadn't been so full all of a sudden.

He hadn't known Zuko had been listening.


	6. The hide and explode tournament

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jee always wins this game.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Still too busy and distracted to work on the main story, sorry! Here's a scene that got cut from chapter three, just Jee and his crew having some innocent violent fun.

 

* * *

 

_Paper attached to the door to the mess_

_Our monthly hide and explode tournament will take place tonight! Everyone, please gather on deck at the midnight hour. I will referee the game, as usual. Please keep the following rules in mind:_

_1\. No part of the ship is off-limits, except for the personal cabins and the komodo rhino hold._  
 _2\. Always use only smoke blasts or soot pouches to tag people. Definitely no live fire._  
 _3\. Non-benders, never throw a soot pouch directly into someone's eyes!_  
 _4\. If you have been tagged, walk to the front deck with your hands above your head to signify that you are no longer in the game._  
 _5\. It is not forbidden to use people who are walking in the direction of the deck with their hands above their heads for target practice. It is, however, very unsporting._  
 _6\. Lieutenant Jee wishes to add that if you harm anyone badly enough that he cannot perform his shipboard duties, you will do his work as well as your own until the victim recovers._  
 _7\. Do keep in mind that this game is only a tactical exercise for everyone to test their skills at tracking, hiding, ambush, and doing combat in very low light conditions. Victory is not worth your life or anyone else's._  
 _8\. Most importantly, have fun!_

_General Iroh_

* * *

 

Jee liked the hide and explode tournaments. He nearly always won, and it was a wonderful opportunity to slap around anyone who'd been extra annoying in the past few weeks. It was also the one night of the month when he was allowed to grab the brat prince by the collar and shoot smoke straight into his absurd face. Hide and explode was one of the very few shipboard amusements that Zuko actually took part in. The game required no social skills, only some stamina and a willingness to hit people, so even he could play without seeming out of place.

The General, Cook, and mechanist Peng refused to play, on account of being too old to run around -although the General could probably have won by just sitting somewhere and waiting until victims wandered into his line of fire. As it was, the three of them spent every game lazing about on the foredeck and greeting every man who'd been knocked out with commisseration and alcohol. Haisu's gimp leg usually got him knocked out early in the game, but he loved it enough to participate just for the sake of the few minutes he could probably squeeze out. That left eighteen players. The ship was built to comfortably hold three times their number, so they had plenty of room in the holds and the superstructure to stage a really good battle.

"Make it a good game! Enjoy yourselves," the General told the gathered crew, arms raised as if he were blessing them before they went into battle. He looked directly at Zuko while he said it, and Zuko stared back with a face so utterly, terribly devoid of enjoyment that it almost made Jee snicker. 

Then the General's hands clapped together with a small explosion of cheerful flame and noise, and everyone began running at the same time. Zuko was off like a shot before Jee had even started turning around.

Jee didn't bother keeping track of who ducked into which door or hatch; most of the ship was interconnected, and people could and would pop up from pretty much anywhere. He waited out of sight behind the open deck door until the thumping of boots on metal had died out, then turned into the superstructure and began to stalk the corridors silently and carefully. There wasn't much point to the game if everyone stayed in hiding all the time. The non-benders could be forgiven for being more cautious, but most of the benders were people who preferred chasing to hiding. Jee did as well. He didn’t usually think of his fire as anything other than a part of him like his hands and his bones, but sometimes when he was standing still and not planning to move, he could feel it crawling inside with something that felt distinctly like impatience.

He didn't meet anyone right away, but after a minute or so, the General's booming voice rang across the ship.

"First mate out!"

The cry was followed almost immediately by a brief explosion only a corridor away, then the General's voice again as the loser of that bout returned to the deck.

"Scullion Sen out!"

Jee grinned and began to sneak up on whoever had eliminated Sen.

Eleven people were knocked out of the game in its first fifteen minutes, and Jee did more than his share. Bao ran right into him. Lei had wedged his skinny frame behind some pipes and tried to smack Jee in the side of the head with a soot pouch while he was walking by, but he wasn't fast enough. Jee caught Lin Wei after a brief chase up a ladder. After that, with only the better players left, pickings got slim.

He kept his blasts as small as possible and tried not to look at them when he fired. It was like walking on deck during the night: everyone could see much better if there were no lights at all and their eyes could adjust to the night. It had taken months to convince Zuko not to light his way outside during night watch.

Jee didn’t encounter anyone else, although he heard the distant sounds of altercations and a few more announcements from the foredeck in the General’s booming voice. He didn’t need to count to know that there couldn’t be more than three or four people still about, himself included. Jee could be patient when he had to, but that didn’t mean he enjoyed it, and he soon found himself thinking dark thoughts about what he’d do to opponents who had the nerve to hide from him rather than face him head on. He was getting hungry, and the bastards on deck were probably drinking all the paint stripper.

The ship’s bell tolled. They’d been at this for a whole half hour, damn it.

"Prince Zuko,” the General’s voice rang out as soon as the sound of the bell had died out. "Lieutenant Jee! Pikeman Shi! If you take any longer to make a move, we'll eat all these delicious midnight snacks without you!"

Jee blinked. It was no surprise that Zuko was still standing. He was fast and strangely good at not being seen, and the longer the game dragged on, the more important sheer endurance and determination became. The brat had enough of those for five men, and he'd been making it to the final four or five since he came on board. Jee had even squared off against him for first place a handful of times, and although he'd always won, Zuko was improving as he got older and stronger. But Shi? The fellow wasn't bad, but he had no talent for being inconspicuous, and non-benders usually didn't last long during hide and explode. They just ran out of ammo.

Apparently, Shi had found a very good hiding place. Zuko was probably prowling around, like Jee; he was a hunter too, albeit still a little hunter with more hunger than wits. It was sheer coincidence that they hadn't bumped into each other yet.

Jee began to move again, cautiously but with more speed than before. Time to finish this. He'd look for Shi, and if he met Zuko on the way, he'd wear him down like he always did. The hold had the best places to hide, so Jee began to descend the ladder again, taking care to check each corridor he passed for anyone lurking about to try and blast him in the head.

When he reached the deck level, he immediately spotted a figure moving down the dark corridor towards him, blast pouch clutched in one hand. Too tall to be Zuko. Shi had come out of his hidey-hole.

Unfortunately, Shi had noticed him as well, and Jee was still hanging off the ladder. But Shi didn't try to take advantage of Jee's less than ideal firing position; he turned around and rushed for the deck door instead.

Jee grinned. _Yeah, you run._

He landed on the floor with a heavy thud and sprinted after Shi. The other probably hoped to lose him for just long enough to take an ambush position somewhere, but Jee was a good runner. This would be over soon.

He burst out the door and almost crashed right into Shi, who'd had to brake or run right into the mass of crew members standing and lying around on deck, the General seated in the middle like a tubby and benevolent harvest god.

Shi whirled around with a yelp and managed to dodge one blast, but then he tripped over Bao's legs and landed on his back with an _oomph._

Jee took a moment to grin at him and sent the tag blast into his arm almost lazily. He could have given Shi a face full of smoke, but the fellow had played a good game, and Jee rather liked him whenever he wasn't acting like he had special privileges because he was screwing the ship's first mate.

Shi didn't look at all disappointed. He smirked and looked up, to some point above Jee's head.

The General followed his gaze and dropped his teacup.

About half of the people sitting around him looked up as well. A few of them screamed. 

If the Dragon of the West was gaping at something right over your head with a look of absolute terror on his face, you dodged and didn't wonder why. Jee tried, but it was too late. He was barely in motion when an enormous _thump_ landed on the top of his head and knocked him down onto the deck, almost in Bao's lap. Soot immediately filled his ears and nose and mouth, and he was so busy hacking that he almost missed the resounding bang of something much heavier hitting the deck a little to the side.

Jee couldn’t breathe, but air didn’t seem like a priority as he forced his eyes open through the cloud of soot enveloping him and twisted towards his assailant.

Zuko was crouched beside him, hands on the deck plating as if he was still unsure of his balance, face almost entirely taken up by an insanely triumphant grin.

_No._

“Tag,” he hissed, so lowly that probably no one but Jee could hear him.

Zuko always had to do everything by extremes. He couldn't just look happy that he'd won his first game. No, he had to look down on Jee as if he'd just destroyed his spirit and disgraced him for all time and slept with his nonexistent wife.

"Pikeman Shi out. Lieutenant Jee out. Prince Zuko takes the game."

It was the General's voice, but like it was being used by a completely different man. He sounded like he was somewhere on the edge between shock and terror.

Jee began to realize why when he finally managed to clear his head enough to start wondering where on earth Zuko could have come from. He'd left himself wide open by following Shi onto the deck, true, but that shouldn't have been dangerous. The only thing on the foredeck that anyone could conceivably jump off of was the sloping roof of the galley, and that was in plain sight of the mass of people gathered around the General. They would have started yelling warnings at Jee at once if they'd seen the brat prince about to pounce on him. There wasn't a single high spot here where anyone could lie in ambush.

Except... Jee's eyes climbed up the command tower in horrified fascination.

No. There was absolutely no way. It just wasn't survivable.

He turned on Zuko and tried to speak in between two bouts of coughing.

"Did you just jump off the bridge?"

Zuko's grin widened impossibly, as if jumping off the bridge was not a suicide attempt but something you had to do to be one of the really cool young princes.

“I did.” There was a brief pause. “Good game, Lieutenant,” he added, in the same tone he used to praise his rhino when she’d managed the monumental and arduous task of eating all her food.

If Jee hadn’t been so preoccupied with how his throat was full of ash, he might have marveled at how elated the brat sounded. Almost giddy.

Zuko stood up, a little gingerly, testing his legs. They seemed in perfect working order. It wasn't fair.

"Lieutenant, take pikeman Shi off the latrines roster for the next three weeks."

Shi grinned up at Zuko. He was still lying on his back, and he looked exactly like the traitorous moron he was. "Thank you, sir!"

Jee glowered down at the indescribable _idiot_ who had lured him out into the open, who had sold him out to the brat prince in exchange for a couple of weeks of not having to scrub the cans, and felt a little better when Shi blanched and tried to melt into the deck plating.

The General broke the tension by walking between Jee and everyone else, his genial face scrunched up in an expression of monumental displeasure. He grabbed Zuko by the upper arm and started to pull him towards the door.

"A word, Prince Zuko."

The royals disappeared into the corridor, but their arguing was loud and remained perfectly audible for quite a while.

“…could have shattered every bone in your body!"

"I broke my fall with a point blast, just like you taught me! I did it perfectly!"

"I taught you that move in case you fell out of a tree. Or off a roof. Not so you could take death leaps off the bridge -and for the sake of a game!"

"I'm fine, Uncle!"

There was some scattered chuckling around Jee as the voices from the corridor moved too far away to carry back outside. It was a rare thing when the General got worked up enough to forget that he shouldn’t scold Prince Zuko like a ten-year-old when the grown men under Prince Zuko’s command could hear every word. Normally Jee would be the most appreciative of all, but he was having a little trouble making his lungs work.

The men seemed to realize that Jee wasn’t in any actual danger of choking and that he would bite their faces off if they tried to fuss over him, so they left him alone. Scullion Sen began to distribute whatever dumplings had survived the prolonged presence of the General. Cook said he was going to fetch better paint stripper and walked off in the same direction as the royals. Jee peered around through stinging, tear-filled eyes, but it looked like Shi had made himself scarce.

Just when he thought he’d mastered the art of breathing again, another coughing fit came out of nowhere. Jee doubled over and clutched a hand against his stomach. He tried to make it better by imagining he was squeezing Zuko’s scrawny neck.

Someone slapped him between the shoulder blades. "All right there, sir?"

Haisu's face appeared beside Jee's head, but his eyes were stinging so badly that the first mate was no more than a blur.

"Good game, sir. Don't worry about the ending, the brats cheated," Haisu went on. "...Or maybe not. There isn't really anything in the rules that forbids ganging up on others. It was pretty clever."

Jee spat up a gob of black saliva. He saw it land on the deck and thought he should have aimed for Haisu's face. "I hope that little catamite of yours is swimming away from this ship right now, because nothing else will save him."

Haisu chuckled and passed Jee a mug of paint stripper. "Look at it from another side, sir. I'm pretty sure this is the first time I've seen Prince Zuko cooperate with anyone on anything. Maybe you could ask Shi for some tips on how he did it. Make all our lives a bit easier."

Jee considered forgetting about six years of friendship, surviving Ba Sing Se and Zhao together, and anything else that tied him to Haisu. It would be worth it to deck the man just once.


	7. Unnaming

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, I still exist! I'm too deep in dissertation to work on anything serious, but please have some very very rushed and unpolished Jeeko h/c. This is a sequel to [the one where Iroh kills Zhao](http://archiveofourown.org/works/725601/chapters/1346452), and [the one where Zuko angsts about being disinherited](http://archiveofourown.org/works/725601/chapters/1393594) and what that means while Jee bandages his hands. It starts directly where the second one left off, in fact, and deals with a lot of the same themes, so reading that one again is probably a good idea. Thank you so much for all the continued support, I promise to put out something serious again after RL work is done.
> 
> Whump whump whump. Jee POV this time.

Zuko is stiff and shivering when he embraces Jee again. Jee kisses him anyway, on the lips, then on the tip of his nose and on his hairline. The new stubble makes his lips tingle. 

Zhao had sent them the brat's hair wrapped in paper. Zhao touched...

Jee has to fight to keep his hands from tightening on Zuko’s shoulders. The fire roaring in his belly is the hottest he can make, white fire for killing and maiming, and it wants _out_.

Did Zhao put his filthy mouth on Jee's brat? His hands? Probably. Zuko pretty much told him so just now, and Jee’s only been thinking about it non-stop since the day the brat went and got himself caught. He’s not an idiot. He’d seen the way Zhao looked at Zuko. It would have been a miracle if the slimy bastard hadn’t tried anything while he had Zuko at his mercy for _weeks_.

But Jee can’t ask.

“Let’s go to bed, sir. The midnight watch is almost over already,” he makes himself say. Zuko nods into his shoulder like a small child.

Jee doesn't even suggest that they move to his own cabin. Zuko is injured, the last thing he needs is to be folded into Jee's narrow bunk. They’ve never slept in Zuko’s cabin together, too afraid of what might happen if the General barged in, but that seems like such a distant and negligible fear now. 

By the time Jee has disrobed down to his underclothes and put his uniform and armor in a neat pile next to Zuko’s sea chest, Zuko is still sitting cross-legged on the floor. Jee catches him quickly looking away, as if he’d been staring rather than trying to move himself to the futon. 

“Come, sir."

Zuko struggles for a moment to gain his balance as he stands up without the use of his bandaged hands, but he manages. He takes a few steps, then stops at the edge of the futon and stares down at it. Either the General or one of the sailors - Jee doesn’t remember giving the order - has made it up with fresh blankets, washed and beaten until they look almost twice as fluffy as their navy-issue bedcovers usually do. There’s a thick leopard-seal pelt on top as well, one that Jee doesn’t recognize. Maybe it’s from the General’s cabin. 

They’re pulled up all the way to the pillow, Jee realizes just before he opens his mouth to ask what is keeping Zuko. He bends down and folds the blankets back before Zuko is forced to do anything like nudge at them awkwardly with his bandaged fingers. Usually he’d be fine with letting the brat struggle a bit, but something tells him that Zuko is very ill prepared to handle even small indignities right now.

“Thanks,” Zuko murmurs.

“Lie down, sir.” He does, and Jee folds the blankets and the pelt. It looks too warm, but Zuko likes to sleep with some weight on him.

The futon is so much wider than a sailor's bunk that it's almost uncomfortable. He doesn’t even have to lie pressed up against Zuko. They fit next to each other without touching, just barely. Not that Jee doesn't want to touch - Agni knows he wants to touch, more than that, he wants to hold and hug and _claim_.

“Good night, sir,” he whispers instead. The lamps in the cabin were already burning low, and Jee manages to douse them with little more than a tug at their fire.

“I assume there’s no way for us to keep the ship."

It’s so sudden that Jee has to blink and gather his wits for a moment. Zuko sounds a great deal more awake than he’d looked only a minute ago.

“Unlikely, sir. They’ll send people hunting for us instead of just telling every ship in the fleet to shoot if they spot us. And your esteemed uncle keeps going into ports and coming back with money to pay the crew, I don’t know from where, but I doubt he can keep it up.” There had been less and less of the money in the last few weeks, barely enough to even feed everyone. And those pirates had cost them. “He was speaking of taking you into the Earth Kingdom as soon as we got you back. He seemed to have a plan, I’m sure he’ll tell you all about it tomorrow."

Zuko nods. There's bright moonlight coming into the cabin through the window above, and Jee can see the movement quite clearly.

“So long as Uncle wants to go north. The Avatar went that way.” It's highly doubtful that the General will want to go that way, but fortunately, Zuko talks on before Jee can mention that and get in trouble. “Does the crew want to leave?”

Jee sighs and rubs at his eyes. He’s not liking this part at all. Many of these men are his friends, but...

“Yes, sir. There’s nothing for them here now. They’re already unlikely to find employment in the Navy again, it would be unfair to keep dragging them along until they’re branded traitors too.”

When he drops his hand from his face, he just catches Zuko averting his eyes, as if he's been staring at Jee again and didn't want to be caught in the act.

“I understand,” he whispers.

There's an odd, charged silence, long enough that Jee becomes aware of the thumping of the engines far below and - just beneath it - the sound of Zuko's breathing. It's quick.

“We’ll find a beach to run the ship aground on. Or where we can take everyone to shore with the rowing boats,” Zuko says. He’s still not looking Jee in the eyes. "Somewhere close to a Fire Nation colony so you can all go there. I don’t know if we have money, but there’s stores and other things on the ship that are worth… I assume they’re worth something. I’ll speak with my uncle to see how much we can give you when you go. My uncle and I will go in the opposite direction. It should be fine if you give us a few days’ head start before you tell anyone whose ship you were on.”

Jee blinks.

“Sir?”

Zuko is fussing with his pillow, pulling it to and fro under his own head and glaring at it. “What?”

“I was hoping I could come with you, sir. If your esteemed uncle permits.”

The boy’s lopsided gaze is on him again in an instant.

“...Why?”

There are so many rational reasons, first of all that Jee ignored a direct summons from Caldera some weeks ago and will be lucky to get out of prison before he dies if Fire Nation authorities ever get hold of him. Most of the other reasons are variations on “There’s nothing waiting for me elsewhere and with you at least I have someone keeping me warm at night”.

But there’s also the way Zuko felt against him just now, still warm, still trusting, and so much _more_ than he'd been when he disappeared weeks ago. The General told Jee and the others all about what happened between Zuko and the Fire Lord, to convince them to join him in rebelling. He'd told Jee first, in private, as if he was afraid that Jee would be the first to refuse to lift a finger to save Zuko from whatever Zhao had in store for him. 

Jee still hasn't parsed it all - Agni above, the brat's poor _face_ \- but he feels that he finally has a chance to know this child he's taken to his bed. To see all of him, to speak with him with some measure of understanding, to go deeper into him than any physical touch ever could. He wants to know more. He wants more of Zuko now, so much more.

And a part of Jee is glad that all this happened, because before there was never any chance of him being more than a temporary distraction for the brat. Before, all he could do was enjoy the physical side of it and try not to feel too proud or too responsible when Zuko did things he never used to do before Jee got involved with him. Like share his blankets without being asked, or smile at Jee during the day when no one was looking.

But now that Zuko has nothing else left, no family, no quest, no ship, Jee can be so much more to him as well. He’d never thought he wanted to _be_ more until it was suddenly possible. It’s horrible to find any joy in this situation, very horrible, but the opportunity fills Jee with so much hope and want that he honestly doesn't know what to do with himself.

He flexes his arm, reaches out, and splays his fingers on the back of Zuko's shoulder.

“I want to come because I want you in my bed more than I want anything else, sir."

Warmth blooms under Zuko’s skin where Jee is touching him, good warmth, pleased and healthy. And the touch is returned, bandaged hands pressing awkwardly against Jee's chest. For a moment, the boy is almost aglow in the dark of the cabin.

But then the rough pressure leaves as Zuko pulls his arms to himself.

"I don’t deserve your loyalty. I… broke faith with you.”

He isn’t talking about Jee's loyalty to him as a soldier, or about his duties to Jee as a commander. And he knows that Jee knows what he means. It’s all over the way he’s holding himself now, still, stiff, as far away as he can go without actually leaving the shelter of Jee’s arms.

The first time the boy admits that he thinks of Jee as a lover, and it has to be like this.

Jee’s fire _roils_ , hard enough that he can feel his body temperature spike all the way from his belly to the hand that’s resting on Zuko’s shoulder.

Zuko flinches.

It’s like a cool wave over the rage, not enough to snuff it out but enough to make Jee breathe in and force the flame in his throat back down. The boy is afraid, and whatever the reason, whatever it is that makes him tremble in Jee’s presence, seeing Jee’s anger will not help him. It’s on his behalf, not directed _at_ him, but something tells Jee that Zuko might not be so good at telling the difference just now.

There’s a part of him that wants to know exactly where Zhao touched, exactly which bits of Zuko's skin he needs to reclaim as his own. He wants to know if Zhao fucked him, or if that part of the boy is still Jee’s and Jee’s alone. It’s useless to feel so possessive, especially when Jee’s had decades to find out that feeling like he owns something has nothing to do with whether he’ll actually get to have it.

But Zuko is looking at him now, staring _hard_ as if he’s daring Jee to say the wrong thing, and Jee knows with absolute certainty that Zuko will never, ever tell him what transpired on that other ship. He'll take it to his funeral pyre. Jee will never know more than that _something_ happened; the warning in Zuko's eyes is all too clear even now. _Back off. Stay in your place. Don’t question me._

_Don’t be mad_

"Did you want to betray me, sir?"

Zuko’s eyes go wide. He's shaking his head before Jee has even finished the question, and his voice sounds shockingly loud in the nighttime cabin.

“No!"

Jee sighs and draws him close until they’re hip to hip, chest to chest, as much of Zuko touching him as possible.

He fits into Jee’s arms so well. He’s so small still, in comparison, so young.

"Then you're innocent in my eyes, sir."

Zuko scoffs, a bloom of heat against Jee’s shoulder.

“Innocent," Jee whispers again. “Of everything but being rude and loud. Everything.”

There’s a long silence. Then Zuko breathes in deep and lets it out again in a long sigh.

“I made all this happen, Lieutenant. I _decided_ to… to do everything I did.”

“Sometimes it matters _why_ you do things, sir. You…” This was too hard. Jee didn’t know what to say. This was the General’s terrain. “Sir, it isn’t your fault that you were put in situations where you had to decide between bad things and worse things. Not all the time. And it really does matter why you do things, not just what you do."

Zuko rolls his head back until he’s looking up, the weight of it heavy on Jee’s arm. He looks angry, and scared, and it's so familiar that it breaks Jee's heart just a little bit. He never used to noticed the fear before, but now that he knows it's there, he has no idea how he's been missing it for years.

“That’s rhino dung. Nobody cares a whit what I _mean_ to do! Would I be like _this_ now if it mattered that I'm trying the best I can?!”

Jee moves his thumb over Zuko’s good cheek, stroking, soothing.

“It matters for _me_ , sir. For you and me. I mean that… whatever happened, I don’t care, I don’t need to know, it _matters_ that you didn’t want to break faith with me. It’s the only thing that matters."

Silence.

“You forgive me?"

Jee wants to nod and shake his head at the same time. Whatever happened, _whatever_ it was, the poor brat shouldn’t be thinking that anyone needs to forgive him.

But he does, and Jee can say it to him, and it would be the height of cruelty to withhold something so simple.

“Yes, sir."

He can _feel_ the fire under Zuko’s skin coiling, tensing as the boy draws in a hard breath.

“For everything?”

Jee doesn’t even know what this is about anymore, but he nods anyway.

“Everything.” He starts to rub the boy’s back, up and down along the spine trying to ease the pressure underneath. “Everything. Shhhh…"

The chi under his hand barely reacts to his touch. If possible, it draws even tighter, vibrating and heating up as if Zuko is gathering all his strength for some massive effort. It’s like touching the back of a pygmy puma that’s about to attack.

His gaze stays fixed on Jee.

“Sir?” Jee would give up a year of his remaining life to know what's going on in that head right now. Zuko looks like he’s either going to kill Jee or immolate himself. “Sir, what’s wrong?”

And then something shifts behind Zuko’s eyes, moves away, fades, Jee can’t tell. His good eyelid drops almost closed. He breathes out, and his head falls heavily onto Jee’s arm.

When he looks up again, his expression is clear and devoid of all anger - of almost everything, save exhaustion.

“The Avatar must be at the North Pole by now. He’ll be a waterbending master by the time I even get there. I’d have to intercept him when he comes back here to learn earthbending, but I have no idea where he’d even go.”

Spirits above. Jee tries not to sigh.

“I’m sure you’ll think of something, sir.”

Zuko moves his head, briefly, and he’s already talking again by the time Jee realizes that he was shaking his head.

“My uncle says Father won’t take me back now even if I get him the Avatar.”

Yes, Jee had heard that. Most of the crew had. The row earlier today after the General killed Zhao was fantastically loud, even after it moved to Zuko’s quarters. Jee had seen Zuko that angry before, but not the General. Not since Ba Sing Se.

“That sounds likely, sir.” It’s a shame Zuko never believes a word his uncle says.

“I think maybe he’s right,” Zuko whispers, and he goes on before Jee can parse that. "Father didn’t write to me to tell me I was disinherited. He wrote to Zhao, and Zhao showed me the letter. It said that he shouldn’t bother bringing me home for a trial. It said… _Prince Zuko is henceforth stripped of all his royal titles and banished in perpetuity. He is no man of the Fire Nation and may no longer invoke any of the laws and honors of our land._ "

The fast, clipped way in which he recites the words leaves no room for doubt. That is an exact quote, and Zuko has rehearsed it hundreds of times.

He really has been disinherited entirely, then. Somehow the reality of what that means hadn’t quite sunk in for Jee. The boy in his arms is not Prince Zuko. He’s not even a countryman. If they run into a Fire Nation patrol on shore, anyone would be allowed to kill him on sight.

It seems to have sunk in a lot more deeply for Zuko. Unsurprisingly, perhaps. He’s had weeks in a cell to think on it.

“If I…” Zuko swallows. He looks Jee straight in the eyes again. “If I stop trying to catch the Avatar. If I make all our work be for nothing. Would you forgive me that?"

It takes Jee a very long moment to realize that he’s hearing something the General has been trying to make Zuko say for three years.

He’s giving up. He's actually giving up.

“I’d forgive you, sir.” He's too stunned to come up with anything else.

Zuko curls in on himself, against Jee, until Jee can’t see his face anymore. But he can feel the boy’s breath on his collarbone, slow and deep with what Jee hopes is relief.

Then warm lips move against his skin. There are words there, but very soft, and Zuko’s lisp has gotten so bad in his agitation that Jee doesn’t understand him.

“Come again, sir?”

A sigh.

“I’m sorry I failed.”

There’s so much Jee wants to say to that. If he started talking now, he still wouldn’t be finished by breakfast time.

He cups the back of Zuko’s head and pats the warm stubble. “It’s all right, sir. Have some rest now. We’ll make more arrangements tomorrow.”

“Zuko.”

Jee blinks. “What, sir?”

“Call me by my name. I have no title now.”

Jee kisses him on the forehead and draws the leopard-seal pelt over his shoulders.

“I can’t imagine calling you anything else, sir. Sleep well.”

  


* * *

  


Zuko sleeps much more soundly than anyone in his situation really should. His breathing goes deep and slow in minutes, and he doesn’t wake even once while Jee spends the whole night holding him and thinking about where they could go, what he remembers of finding food on the road, how he could protect Zuko if they meet Fire Nation pursuers. He hasn’t traveled through the Earth Kingdom since Ba Sing Se.

Disinherited or not, Zuko is still a strong bender, and he blinks himself awake moments after Jee feels the sunrise stir his blood. Jee smiles at him, kisses him, tries not to look like he spent half of the night churning one question over and over in his mind.

“Sir, you didn’t say if you’d permit me to come with you into the Earth Kingdom.”

Zuko blinks. He always looks more unguarded when he’s just woken up, younger, and today moreso than usual. He looks less angry, but still very tired.

“I… I have no idea what Uncle wants to do. I don’t think _he_ knows what to do, he just pretends he’s got a handle on everything and it’s _never_ true and…” He shakes his head. “Lieutenant, you won’t be… They’ll brand you a traitor too. They’ll be after us for sure, and they’ll kill you if you’re with us."

Jee had considered that, yes. “Sir, do you want me to come?”

Zuko nods, once, immediately.

“That’s all that matters, sir.”

There is a smile hidden somewhere in the look on Zuko’s face. Jee is almost sure of it.

“Come with us, then. And call me by my name.”

The mere thought makes Jee snicker. He really can’t. It would be like calling the General by his first name.

“Maybe in a few years, sir. I’ll need to work up to that one. Let’s get dressed, I think I hear the breakfast bell.”

Zuko just nods.

  


* * *

  


“Here,” the General says, putting a meaty fingertip on the map. “The ship won’t be able to quite reach the shore, but it shouldn’t take us more than two trips in the boats to put everyone and their supplies on land. The rocks will shield us from view if anyone in Yu Dao's bay happens to be looking in our direction."

Zuko waits for Jee to nod in agreement before he also assents to his uncle’s plan. It’s very noticeable. So noticeable, in fact, that the General casts them an odd look as he walks out of the room to continue his packing.

The General finding out that Jee has been fucking his beloved nephew was rather far down their list of potential problems before. After a night of considering every aspect of a trip through the Earth Kingdom, though, Jee is suddenly very unsure about how he can make this work. The Zuko aspect of it, or rather the sleeping with Zuko aspect of it. The General will be very close all the time.

“Sir, I think your esteemed uncle suspects something. It will be… difficult to hide."

Zuko sighs. He still looks tired. More than he did in the morning, actually, and he’s staring about the bridge in a way that can only be called sad. It’s like he misses the place already.

“We’ll deal with it,” he murmurs. “I’ll tell him when we’re on the road.”

Jee blinks. “You will, sir?”

“Yes. It’s important. And call me by name, what’s so hard about it?”

Jee can feel his mouth form the daftest, most idiotic grin that he’s ever managed in his entire life.

"Thank you, sir," he says. “I’d like to use “sir” as long as I can, if you don't mind.”

Zuko turns away before Jee can really read the look on his face. In the one quick glimpse he got, it looked oddly like distress.

  


* * *

  


As soon as the last of their crew has disappeared around a bend on the road leading to Yu Dao, the General claps Jee on the shoulder and smiles at Zuko.

“Time to go! We should make the most of this good weather. But I just remembered I forgot some of the teas I packed on the beach. Wait a moment, I’ll be right back.”

The old man turns around and disappears through the spindly trees that mark the path down to where they left the ship’s boats. Jee stares after him. He personally checked three times that no luggage had been forgotten.

“What?”

Zuko shrugs and pushes one of the General’s bags at Jee. “He wants to leave a message for those stupid mysterious friends he has, I suppose. Don’t bother asking, he’ll never tell us anything. Help move some things out of these, he overloaded them."

He pushes open one of the General’s admittedly bulky bags with his bandaged hands, then starts moving handfuls of wrapped biscuits and dried fruit into his own pack. Jee crouches down next to him, wincing at the pangs in his back.

“Uncle says we have to call him Mushi from now on,” Zuko grumbles. "And that I’m Lee.” He sounds all business. He’s been remarkably good about everything since his talk with Jee.

Jee nods as he begins shifting some more of the heavy food from the General’s bags into his own. His own name isn’t so notorious that he needs an alias, not yet, and he hopes it’ll stay that way.

“Understood, sir."

Zuko casts him an odd, long look. “You have to call me Lee. You can’t call me sir anymore."

Right.

“Lee,” Jee tries. What an odd name. Not in and of itself, there’s an endless amount of people called Lee in the world, but it’s difficult to associate it with the boy sitting next to him.

Jee nods again anyway, not wanting to remark on it. This situation is strange enough.

“Understood, Lee."

They continue to shift the provisions around in silence, until all the weight looks a bit more evenly distributed. It’s a lot, but it won’t last them more than a few weeks at best.

“Lieutenant?"

And so odd to think that he might be hearing his title for the last time.

“Yes?"

“Call me by my name,” Zuko - Lee - says. "Just once. You’ve never said it.”

“I have,” Jee protests. He’s complained plenty of times to other crew members or the General about _Prince Zuko_ who did something or other, no few times when Zuko was actually in earshot.

“Not to me. You won’t be able to soon, we’ll be on the run. And it’s not my name anymore, it’s a Fire name. I can’t keep it.” Zuko isn't looking at Jee. He’s focusing very hard on knotting the ties of his pack. It's not working out very well, because the bandages leave only his thumbs free, but he hasn't asked for help yet.

"All right," Jee says, slowly. "Just once then."

There’s something wrong here, a mismatch between the almost casual tone and the tightness of the boy’s profile. Almost three years at sea have given Jee a very keen sense of when Zuko is trying to keep a lid on something. He’s dreadful at bluffing or lying to any degree.

 _Careful_ , Jee thinks as he leans in and pushes a kiss onto the boy’s single brow.

“Zuko."

The syllables roll off his tongue with almost shocking ease. They feel so different from all the other times that he’d snapped them in anger, so soft, so utterly transformed that for a moment Jee wonders if he hasn’t accidentally said the wrong word.

It's a beautiful name. He never realized that before.

The boy closes his eyes and breathes in, out, and very quietly begins to cry.


	8. In hiding

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sequel to [Unnaming](https://archiveofourown.org/works/725601/chapters/3669401). For aoicao, maker of lots of gorgeous art over on [Princebender](http://princebender.tumblr.com), who wanted to see Jee react to Jet perving on Zuko in the verse around A Tightly Woven Net ;) 
> 
> Includes a reference to [Safe and sound](https://archiveofourown.org/works/725601/chapters/1393594), meaning very vague hints at past sexual abuse.

_Jet_ was sitting so close that Jee could smell him. Not that smelling him would have been hard from any distance. 

"That's very noble of you,” General Iroh told the unwashed ruffian. Then he turned and looked straight at his nephew. "I believe people can change their lives if they want to. I believe in second chances."

The look on Zuko’s face was closed, hard. He shifted his glare to his soup bowl.

But the moment _Jet_ and the General focused on their own conversation again, Zuko’s shoulders slumped. He glanced up at Jee, his face the picture of childish confusion for a split second, like he was saying _I don’t understand_ and _What do I do now, what do they want from me_. He’d been looking at Jee like that a lot lately.

As far as Jee was concerned, nobody had any business guilting Zuko into thinking that he needed _second chances_. Not the General, and definitely not random Earth Kingdom asswipes who eyeballed Jee’s brat like they wanted to eat him.

Zuko didn’t need any advice, or any kind of attention, let alone _that_ kind. Not when he still muttered things in his sleep that Jee would never repeat to him in daylight. Not when he would do anything with Jee except kiss, never kiss. He hadn’t since that one time the day they got him back, when he’d opened up like he always did, then froze the moment Jee’s lips touched his with all the kindness and reverence that Jee held for him but didn’t know how to put into words.

* * *

Jee had tolerated the nighttime thieving expedition because he knew Zuko secretly liked that sort of jaunt, and the brat needed some cheering up. Not that he’d gotten a say in it - _Jet_ had walked up to Zuko and made the arrangements while Jee was down in the ship, trying to take a leak in the stinking heads without the breeze blowing it right back in his face. Jee had also tolerated _Jet_ joining them for dinner, though mainly because he'd had no idea what he was signing up for.

But he wasn’t about to tolerate one more second of the stinking dirt grubber trying to cajole Zuko into joing his stupid little gang. Not when it was clear that Zuko didn't want to join, didn’t want to be persuaded, and wasn’t physically backing away only because he didn’t know how backing away even worked.

"I don't want to be part of your gang, will you fuck off already?"

If Jee had any doubts about whether his interference would be welcome, they were resolved by the speed with which Zuko made room when Jee moved to insert himself between the two of them.

“What’s the meaning of this?” He couldn’t say _Leave, can’t you see you make his skin crawl_ because Zuko was standing right there.

Except he could, because there was some commotion going on behind them involving the General and tea, and Zuko immediately turned away to deal with it. 

Jet craned his neck to look, but Jee stepped to the side to block his view.

“Scram,” he ordered. “Don’t bother us again."

Jet’s ridiculous eyebrows lowered. He seemed to like Jee about as much as Jee liked him. He tried to peer past Jee's shoulder again, apparently judging how low he’d have to whisper to make sure Zuko wouldn’t hear.

"Look, old man, I’m not asking you to get involved. But you can’t keep Lee from wanting to do some good. He’s not going to just hide away in the city for the rest of his life."

Oh, Jee was very sure of that. He had no idea how long the General expected Zuko to stay put and keep his head down in this place. He was also sure that however long Zuko would take to figure out what he wanted, or whatever that would turn out to be, Jee would stand behind him to deal with anyone who wanted to take the brat’s choices away from him.

He opened his mouth to say something a great deal more threatening than “scram”, but then Jet’s eyes popped open wide as eggs.

Jee looked around. He didn’t see anything stranger than the General and Zuko arguing over a puddle of steaming tea spreading on the ground.

When he looked around again, puzzled, Jet was gone.

* * *

The riddle solved itself a few weeks later.

The General and - incomprehensibly - Zuko had found themselves work at a teashop, and Jee at a blacksmith's who appreciated a strong worker who didn't let the fires go out every two hours. It wasn't the worst job. Jee had to use muscles he hadn't needed in years and came home covered in soot every day, but he got off early enough that he could wash and have a drink at the teashop before it closed. He could also see Zuko alone in the alley behind the building, while he was taking out trash and getting more water.

One particular night, they didn't get further than some heated fumbling (no kisses, still no kisses) before the teashop owner bleated for Zuko - Lee - to stop lazing about and come tidy up the kitchen. Jee let him go with a last squeeze under the belt and a whispered promise of more that night, if Zuko snuck out of the bedchamber he shared with the General and out into the living room where Jee kept his bedroll. The General was a very sound sleeper.

Jee caught a flash of movement at the far corner of the building just as he finished straightening his tunic.

He'd have recognized that ugly mop of hair anywhere. _I told him to fuck off_ , Jee thought, and then _he was watching us, he watched my brat, he listened to my brat’s sounds_. 

The boy was fast, but Jee could run a lot better than most people would guess from looking at him. He caught up, dodged the swipe of blades with an ease born from countless hours of dodging fireballs during training, and slammed Jet against the side of a dark house.

“ _What did I tell you_ ,” he growled. It was a struggle to keep his breath from sparking.

He almost recoiled when he saw the snarl on Jet’s face. It was too much like the sick, feral rat-dog whose bite had almost killed Jee during the first year of the Great Siege.

“Get your filthy hands off me!"

 _His_ hands were filthy? Fucking hell.

“ _Lee doesn’t want you_ ,” Jee said. “He doesn’t want to look at you. He doesn’t want to join your gang. He doesn’t want to fuck you. _Leave him alone_."

"I don't want to fuck a firebender," Jet hissed, and Jee's blood ran cold. _How?_ "I'll give him a hot poker up his ass, and you too, you murdering -gghk!"

Jee snatched at his neck with a hand that was a breath away from aflame, long-unused fire straining in his veins. _Kill the threat, kill, kill_ , it sang.

"What are you talking abou..."

“Murderers,” Jet gasped. “I know what you are! What happened to his face? Did you sneeze on him while you were fucking? How old was he when you got to him?"

_Kill._

He was almost jolted out of his anger entirely when he realized that he'd managed to lift Jet onto his toes just by his neck. 

Jee shook his head and growled. He had to kill this ma... this...

He was so light. Had to be skin and bone under the silly armor. He was Zuko's age.

"I'll give you one chance, _boy_ ,” Jee snarled. "Go to the other end of the city and stay there. If I see you again, I'll burn your head off your scrawny neck."

"Fuck you," the boy croaked. But his eyes were glued on the fire glowing in the back of Jee's throat, wide and unblinking, and Jee could feel his breath racing against his fingers. He was scared of fire, this one. Very scared. There was a chance he'd actually do as he was told.

Maybe. Maybe he'd learn. Jee began to let go. 

_I'll give him a hot poker up his..._

He tightened his grip again for just a moment, barely the blink of an eye, but with his fingers burning with all the heat they could hold without actually erupting into flame. Jet's mouth opened in a chocked-off scream of pain.

"For threatening Lee," Jee told him. 

He didn't look back, but he heard the boy cough and moan as he slid to the ground.

He spent all the way back to the apartment second-guessing himself. By the time he'd made it up the creaking stairs and pulled open the front door, he was almost sure that he should have killed Jet after all. 

The General was standing at the sink, spooning rice into bowls, and called out a greeting without looking around. Zuko sat crouched next to their low table, scrubbing at the suspicious brown stain that they hadn’t been able to get rid of since the day they found the thing in an alley nearby. He was naked above a loose pair of pants; the work tunic Jee had been crumpling earlier had been hung to dry over the folding screen. 

Jee stared at the scene. 

Zuko looked over his shoulder and blinked. Then he flashed a brief grin and bent over the table again, giving Jee a beautiful and very deliberate view of worn green pants stretched tight over his backside.

He should have killed. He should have done whatever had to be done to protect his...

He should have done what was necessary. He'd endangered them all.

Zuko did sneak out into the living room that night, and ended up biting and fire-breathing straight through his sash while Jee used his fingers and mouth to make him come again and again.

* * *

When Jet burst into the teashop the next evening, Jee was there, and he was ready. He couldn't firebend in public, but there was nothing hard about punching someone's nose up into their brains.

Before he was even out of his chair, Zuko was in the way, tightening his grip on two swords that hadn't been anywhere near his hands a split second ago.

"Sir," Jee whispered.

"Stand down. I'll deal with this." Zuko's voice was harsh with fury and danger.

Jee understood feeling hunted and helpless and wanting to take power back. When Zuko shot forward and slashed at his opponent, Jee stepped out of the way, lingering just close enough that he could interfere if he had to.


End file.
